The origins of this trope as a genre date to early manga, with Princess Knight generally regarded as the modern Ur-Example of the genre's most basic defining trait: a cute and perky female heroine defeating bad guys and engaging in magical adventures. Most series that followed it, however, focused on the magical part and avoided fighting, creating the more whimsical Cute Witch sister-genre.

The genre gained the remainder of its defining characteristics with Naoko Takeuchi's series Codename: Sailor V and its More Popular Spin Off/SequelSailor Moon, which took all these elements and blended them with classic Magical Girl tropes and some Super Sentai characteristics like a team of different heroines with balanced abilities and personalities. The result was a series simultaneously aimed toward and empowering to girls with large amounts of character building and storyline that still gave focus to the battles and allowed for fanservice. A virtually-unheard-of combination at that time, the series quickly attracted a rabid fanbase with a ridiculously-wide demographic. While many early anime and manga of the genre which followed were accused of being (and often were, at the start) rip-offs of Sailor Moontrying to repeat its success by copying the formula, eventually they evolved into unique works and a novel hybrid genre.

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The action-oriented Magical Girl Warriors have the extra bonus of being marketed to male demographics, so they can be very lucrative; in this case, they often resemble Distaff Counterparts of Japanese superheroes, particularly the male-dominated Sentai genre as well as other Henshin Hero characters. This contributed significantly to the associated franchises being exported to the West. Due to sharing many of the typicalteenage-superherotropes, these characters ended up being much more representative of the Magical Girl genre outside Japan, as opposed to, for example, Cute Witches.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

The earliest prototype was Go Nagai's Cutey Honey franchise, which slowly mutated and grew to have an unexpected female fanbase whenever the Fanservice level fluctuated heavily. Interestingly, she's a sci-fi-based variant: instead of magic, she has a device planted in her body that rearranges the molecules around her, transforming her clothing into her hero outfit or many other costumes as needed. This means that instead of a G-rated naked silhouette being part of a Transformation Sequence, she really is naked as her clothes are temporarily a cloud of atoms, hence the high fanservice level. Honey Flash, indeed.

Devil Hunter Yohko was the second big Magical Girl Warrior series, with its eponymous heroine just as adept at martial arts as she is with her sword and magic. She isn't afraid to get physical if that's what it takes to get the job done.

Revolutionary Girl Utena particularly embodies the "growing up as a struggle" metaphor, with the added bonus of Gnostic metaphor thrown in for good measure. This was emphasized way more in the anime than in the manga, however.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica: A darker take. Teenage girls are recruited to combat Eldritch Abominations known as "witches", and use anything from bombs to swords to ribbons to accomplish this. Because of the nature of the contract every magical girl makes and how magic generally works, every magical girl is doomed to ultimately become a witch. If they don't die horribly first. It also deconstructs their general durability in combat; a normal human body simply cannot take that kind of punishment from combat, and one of the awful truths is that they're Liches in all but name.

Invoked in Mao-chan, where Earth is being invaded by aliens so cute that fighting them is viewed as bullying, forcing the heads of Japan's defense forces to have their cute granddaughters fight the aliens.

It's particularly heavy on the "Warrior" part, as there are very few blaster- or wand-type weapons (the most powerful weapons being melee-based, like the Scissor Blades), and beauty is MOST DEFINITELY tarnished, as the main character (as well as several others) is realistically beaten bloody and bruised during some fights.

Mei Company focuses on magical girls who retired and opened a cleaning service, while the current generation of magical girls battle the forces of evil in the background.

Dai Mahou Touge is a parody. The Magical Girl in question (who is a Villain Protagonist, taking after her evil queen of a mother) is vulnerable to getting her magic suppressed, which sounds quite inconvenient until you realize she also happens to be a master of unarmed combat specializing in crippling submission wrestling techniques. Her magical incantation is "Lyrical Tokarev, kill them all!".

Corrector Yui is a sci-fi themed magical girl show, with the heroine's powers only existing in cyberspace.

Mahou Shoujo Tokushuusen Asuka emphasizes on the Warrior aspect. The girls wear military-grade accessories such as utility belts and pouches, combat knives and such on top of the conventionally girly costumes.

Parodied in Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gautaman, where devout Catholic Mari is given a magical fundoshi (sumo wrestling loin cloth) by Buddha and transforms into a scantily-clad heroine in order to battle the evil Black Buddha cult.

Jubei-chan, albeit less "magical" and more "ninja" than other examples.

Mahou Shoujo Ore gender-flips it slightly — the girls turn into magical boy warriors due to a couple of transformation complications.

In Oops! I Messed Up and Made the Wrong Person Into a Magical Girl!, Kayo isn't so much a warrior as she is a berserker. Combined with her crass delinquent attitude, the monsters she fights barely stand a chance.

Wonder Woman has resembled this at times, with her magic origins, Transformation Sequence, and such. Most especially in the early Silver Age, when she was depicted having adventures as Wonder Girl, just as Superman was once Superboy. Later, a separate Wonder Girl character, Donna Troy, was introduced.

Zodiac Starforce is an American take on a Magical Girl team. Artist Paulina Gauncheau is a huge fan of the genre (and especially Sailor Moon), and it shows.

The Enchantress (not the one from Marvel comics) can be considered a prototype - the heroine, June, goes to a party in a haunted castle, stumbles into a secret chamber, and is given a transformation word by a mysterious being, which transforms her into a blonde witch so she can battle a Monster of the Week.

The crystal-wielding heroines of the Crystal Cadets comic book series.

Taylor Hebert in the fanfic A Skittering Heart acts as near the epitome of a Magical Girl Warrior. Wielding a Keyblade Taylor is perfectly happy to mix it up in melee combat, augment herself and her allies with defensive and healing magic, or go on the attack at range with a variety of Black Magic spells.

The concept behind the Fuku Fic sub-genre is turning Ranma Saotome into one of these, usually a Sailor Senshi.

Princess: The Hopeful, a New World of Darkness fan supplement, adds magical girls to the mix. No Princess is going to last too long without being able to survive a fight, but the Calling of Champion has an extra dose, as their purpose is literally to fight evil. There is also extra emphasis of this style in the Courts of Swords (as heroic larger-than-life figures), Storms (as an Ax-Crazy version), and Hearts (with an emphasis on noble traditions, which includes warrior traditions).

Magical Burst is a mahou shoujo game that takes primary inspiration from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Magical girls in this game are tasked with killing enough youma to collect 13 Oblivion Seeds so that they can make a wish. But as in Madoka, things are not always what they seem, and the Mentor Mascots known as tsukaima keep horrible secrets from the Magical Girls they give power to.

Pathfinder: Regardless of how well they'll ultimately fit, the Magical Child archetype for the Vigilante class is explicitlymeant to cover the Magical Girl trope (the switch between the public and secret identities becomes a Transformation Sequence that is much faster, but also flashier and louder, for instance), and being in a system like Pathfinder it'd be hard to avoid fights being a fairly large part of their repertoire. Regardless of how the archetype will turn out, it is of course possible to build towards this trope with the right other magic-using classes.

El Goonish Shive: In the later comics, Elliot gains a superheroine spell after already having the ability to shapeshift into virtually any conceivable female human form including transformation of clothes. The spell comes with three "secret identities" that shift the user's personality somewhat to help with staying under the radar.

Last Res0rt includes a faction known as the Galaxy Girl Scouts, which seem to be a cross between the sailor senshi and the Green Lantern Corps (i.e., alien girls in whatever the alien version of "schoolgirl" happens to be).

Princess Chroma: A parody of the genre in which the magical girl is most definitely the hands-on type. She prefers fighting giant monsters with a mace over resorting to spells, despite magic being the more effective, easier way to end a fight.

Misfits Of Avalon is an American take on the genre; the heroines' powers derive from Celtic mythology, their costumes are based off Catholic schoolgirls instead of Japanese ones, their Mentor Mascot is a large wolfhound rather than a cute little cat and there is much less focus on prettiness and feminity.

Magick Chicks: Teenage witch Melissa Helrune, the daughter of a former Magical Girl Warrior and her former Evil Overlord archnemesis, ends up literally torn between the good and evil sides of her heritage.

Magical Girl Neil: the only child of a woman descended from a long line of magical girls gets stuck with the job despite being a boy.

Sleepless Domain: a nameless city is defended by Magical Girls from the monsters that stalk it during the night. The girls earn fame, fortune and the admiration of their city, but this is war... and war has casualties.

Shattered Starlight is about a former magical girl struggling to hold down a job and trying to get her life together a decade after the breakup of her team.

Fey of the Whateley Universe, who has an ancient Faerie riding along in her head, an ability to summon armor magically, and a magical battle in Boston in which she and The Necromancer spent most of the fight trying to intimidate each other by calling their attacks.

One could call every female character in RWBY this, if you count using Dust powered weaponry as magic. The one who fits the archetype the best is Weiss Schnee, who has a frilly outfit, the ability to make glyphs that alter gravity and a rapier loaded with Dust capsules that she can use to enhance her attacks or as projectiles. Ironically she behaves more like a Dark Magical Girl at first.

Star vs. the Forces of Evil is about Star Butterfly, a Girly Bruiser princess from the magical kingdom of Mewni who is exiled to Earth until she gets a better handle on the powers granted by the magic wand she was gifted on her fourteenth birthday.

W.I.T.C.H. is about a group of teenage girls who transform into superpowered versions of themselves called the Guardians of the Veil and are tasked to protect the universe. Unlike the series name suggests they are not witches; those are simply the first letters of their names.

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